Learners of German often complain about the language\u2019s three grammatical genders and their appropriate articles because it seems to be a torture to learn nouns and their associated grammatical genders. Therefore, I decided to address myself to this topic and give you some guidelines how you can match the correct gender and\/or article to a particular noun.<\/p>\n
First of all, you should be aware of the fact that not the object, which is denoted by a particular word, has a gender, but ONLY THE WORD! For example, nouns that refer to items of furniture like \u2018chair\u2019 (der Stuhl) and \u2018armchair\u2019 (der Sessel) are masculine in German. Other items of furniture like \u2018lamp\u2019 (die Lampe) and \u2018couch\u2019 (die Couch) are feminine. And still other pieces are neuter, for example, \u2018sofa\u2019 (das Sofa) and \u2018shelf\u2019 (das Regal).<\/p>\n
You have probably recognized that \u2018sofa\u2019 and \u2018couch\u2019 are two different words that denote the same object. The only difference is that the word \u2018sofa\u2019 is neuter in German and the word \u2018couch\u2019 is feminine. Consequently, you cannot simply attach any male, female or neuter features to objects! Anyway, let\u2019s have a look what nouns are masculine in German.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
a) Living Beings<\/strong><\/p>\n First of all, all nouns that denote male living beings (humans and animals) are masculine.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n der Vater \u2013 father<\/p>\n der Mann \u2013 man<\/p>\n der Onkel \u2013 uncle<\/p>\n der K\u00f6nig \u2013 king<\/p>\n der Pr\u00e4sident \u2013 president<\/p>\n der Hengst \u2013 stallion<\/p>\n der Hahn \u2013 rooster<\/p>\n der Kater \u2013 tom\/male cat<\/td>\n die Mutter \u2013 mother<\/p>\n die Frau \u2013 woman<\/p>\n die Tante \u2013 aunt<\/p>\n die K\u00f6nigin \u2013 queen<\/p>\n die Pr\u00e4sidentin \u2013 female president<\/p>\n die Stute \u2013 mare<\/p>\n die Henne \u2013 hen<\/p>\n die Katze \u2013 female cat<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n <\/p>\n * A \u2018girl\u2019 is, of course, female but as said above, the word itself determines whether a noun is masculine, feminine, or neuter. Thus, all German nouns that contain the minimization ending \u2013chen<\/strong> are ALWAYS NEUTER.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n b) Male occupations<\/strong><\/p>\n Nouns that denote male occupations are masculine.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n der Polizist \u2013policeman<\/p>\n der B\u00e4cker \u2013baker<\/p>\n der Schneider \u2013taylor<\/p>\n der Bademeister \u2013pool attendent<\/p>\n der Ingenieur \u2013 engineer<\/p>\n der Koch \u2013 cook\/chef<\/td>\n die Polizistin \u2013 policewoman<\/p>\n die B\u00e4kerin<\/p>\n die Schneiderin<\/p>\n die Bademeisterin<\/p>\n die Ingenieurin<\/p>\n die K\u00f6chin<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n <\/p>\n As you can see when you want to form the female form of an occupation you simply have to add the ending \u2013in to the masculine form of the noun and replace \u2018der\u2019 with \u2018die\u2019. Sometimes the main vowel of a word will be converted into an umlaut, for example, Arzt -> \u00c4rztin, Koch -> K\u00f6chin. This grammatical feature has not been \u201cinvented\u201d in order to confuse foreign learners of German. Actually, this has something to do with the simplification of pronunciation. You should note well that speech sounds influence each other and that they determine how their adjacent sounds are realized or can be realized. For example, the word \u201cKoch\u201d is realized with a hard ch-sound because it is virtually impossible to pronounce it with a soft ch-Sound. When the ending \u2013in is added to the word \u2018Koch\u2019 the hard ch-sounds automatically changes to a soft ch-sound because it is much easier to utter the syllable \u2018chin\u2019 with a soft ch-sound. In order to ensure to maintain this simpler pronunciation of \u2018chin\u2019 the \u2018o\u2019 has to be transformed into an \u2018\u00f6\u2019. In other words, our speech organs can realize many single speech sounds but when we combine these sounds to form words the sounds themselves restrict our speech organs what other sounds we can realize in a particular phonemic environment.<\/p>\n Result:<\/strong> The grammatical gender of a word has nothing to do with the \u2018gender\u2019 of the objects or subjects it denotes. The object itself is usually genderless. Nevertheless, all German nouns that refer to male humans or male occupations and male animals are always masculine in German.<\/p>\n Last but not least:<\/strong> You are probably aware of the fact that there are much more rules. I will discuss them in my upcoming post. I am also planning to write such thorough posts on feminine and neuter nouns.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n To be continued\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Learners of German often complain about the language\u2019s three grammatical genders and their appropriate articles because it seems to be a torture to learn nouns and their associated grammatical genders. Therefore, I decided to address myself to this topic and give you some guidelines how you can match the correct gender and\/or article to a…<\/p>\n\n\n
\n Masculine\/male forms<\/strong><\/td>\n Feminine\/female forms<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n der Junge \u2013 boyder Sohn \u2013 son<\/p>\n das<\/strong> M\u00e4dchen<\/strong>\u2013 girl*die Tochter \u2013 daughter<\/p>\n \n\n
\n Masculine\/male forms<\/strong><\/td>\n Feminine\/female forms<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n der Arzt \u2013doctor\/physiciander Kaufmann \u2013trader<\/p>\n die \u00c4rztindie Kauffrau<\/p>\n